The Inquisitr » lawsuit

No Doubt suing Activision over ‘Band Hero’ appearance

Chris Greenhough — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:07:09 +0000

Californian band No Doubt appears in Band Hero, the latest entry in Activision’s long line of Hero videogames. However, all is not well in the land of licensed music videogame spin-offs.

TMZ reports that band members are unhappy about how their in-game avatars can be used to “sing, dance, and perform” any of the sixty songs in the game, only three of which are by No Doubt themselves. This, claims a lawsuit filed by the band against Activision, “transformed No Doubt band members into a virtual karaoke circus act.”

A particular sore point for the band is the fact that Gwen Stefani’s digital avatar can be used to sing about “having sex with prostitutes” in “Honky Tonk Woman” by the Rolling Stones … in a male voice. That said, Activision seems ready to fight its corner on this, according to a statement it just released:

“Activision has a written agreement to use No Doubt in Band Hero – an agreement signed by No Doubt after extensive negotiations with its representatives, who collectively have decades of experience in the entertainment industry [...] Activision believes it is within its legal rights with respect to the use and portrayal of the band members in the game and that this lawsuit is without merit.”

If you’re sat there thinking, “This totally reminds me of a very similar, recent story,” you may be thinking of Courtney Love’s promise to “sue the shit” out of Activision for its (admittedly tactless) use of Kurt Cobain’s image in Guitar Hero 5.

Personally I don’t get these claims made by artists. I mean, as if anybody actually looks at what’s going on in the background when playing these things. Seriously, I’m so bloody focused on those scrolling bars of colored dots during gameplay that there could be four pieces of human-sized broccoli playing the instruments and I’d be none the wiser.

[Via TMZ]

Think you’d make a good lawyer? Sign up at AllRise

Steven Hodson — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:30:00 +0000

I only found out about AllRise because they posted a comment on FriendFeed about my story of the woman suing a zoo over dolphins splashing too much water had been added to their list of active cases being argued by site members. The idea behind the site, the brainchild of “Friendly Ops”, is that it supplies a way for people to take out their aggressions towards injustice, build a community of people who have something to say or to protest, and to fill a void for people wanting to debate in a smart and comfortable by supplying an innovative tool for debating.

The idea being that as a member you can add a case to the docket to which people can add both defense and prosecution arguments. The “trials” last for seven days during which you can pick guilty or not guilty, make objections to the arguments of others as well as strengthen the arguments of others.

Interestingly enough you can also embed a widget of the court case on your blog. The widget includes the voting and debating system so your readers can makes their votes without even leaving your blog.

This is the entry on the docket for the story I wrote here earlier and so far the Not Guilty is winning as you can see.

Further down on the page you can see the section that displays the defense and prosecution’s arguments as well the option to add your own arguments to the case. You’ll need to join first though but you don’t have to to vote guilty or not guilty.

All in all it looks like fun and a great way to improve your debating skills in the process.

A Chicago zoo sued over dolphins splashing

Steven Hodson — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:04:26 +0000

In yet another case of suing just because we can a Chicago zoo is finding itself being sued because their dolphins were; in the words of the woman doing the suing - “recklessly and willfully trained and encouraged their dolphins to throw water at the spectators”.

Well duh! What do you expect when you go to a dolphin show at a zoo? Of course you are going to get wet. Of course there is going to be water all over the place.

However this woman feels that just because there were no signs or protective mats the zoo deserves to be sued for $50,000.

Edwards is demanding more than $50,000 for lost wages, medical expenses and emotional trauma from the Chicago Zoological Society and the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, which operate the zoo in Chicago’s southwest suburbs.

Source: Reuters UK :: Woman sues U.S. zoo over splashing dolphins

I don’t know about you but I would think that any normally sane person would have the brain power to realize that all the water thrown around by dolphins in a show might be just a tad slippery and that maybe one should be careful when walking about. Are we becoming that brain-dead that we can’t move or do anything without having warning signs shoved in our faces?

The really sad part about this is that the zoo will probably settle because it’s cheaper than fighting this kind of stupidity in court.

Silly lawsuit time with Apple & Microsoft in Tsera crosshairs

Steven Hodson — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:30:00 +0000

Here we go again folks, yet another frivolous lawsuit being filed in The Eastern District of Texas (Tyler) District court which as we all known is the favorite court of silly companies looking to get rich via questionable patent lawsuits. This time it is a company by the name of Tsera who are claiming that Apple, Microsoft and about twenty other companies named in the suit have been violating their patent for – “methods and apparatus for controlling a portable electronic device using a touchpad”.

Apparently their patent relates to a touchpad that understands input demands by detecting the pattern of strokes and gestures on the input surface by the user. Tsera claims that several devices that includes the complete line of Apple iPods, the Zune from Microsoft and LG’s Chocolate mobile phone infringe on this patent.

Apple has been singled out in the lawsuit as the worst offender. Tsera complains that Apple knew of the patent’s existence as long ago as September 2004, but has been and “continues to be wilful, wanton and deliberate” in its use of touchpad technology, “carried out with full knowledge and awareness of the Plaintiff’s patent rights and without license from the Plaintiff”.

Tsera is seeking triple damages from Apple as a result of this “deliberate and wilful” copyright infringement, and standard damages from the other companies it accuses of patent infringement. It is also asking the court to require all of the accused companies to pay compulsory future royalty payments for the ongoing use of touchpad technology in their products.

Source: Telegraph :: Apple and Microsoft sued over touchpad interface

Bloggers as journalists – deciding judge doesn’t know what blogs are

Steven Hodson — Sat, 02 May 2009 02:47:49 +0000

Talk about leaving your fate in the hands of angels. That is probably how Shellee Hale who as part of a defamation law suit against her is feeling right now. One of the parts of the lawsuit is that the plaintiff in the case, Too Much Media LLC, is demanding that Hale be forced to reveal who her source was for the information that was being used in posts about the company.

The posts are part of an investigation that Shellee Hale was working on about the security breaches experienced by online services using Too Much Media’s security software. The problem is that the judge deciding the case doesn’t have the first clue about blogs, forums or even instant messaging.

Locasio started off by seeing a primer on the basics. Inquiring about one blog that Hale frequented to glean information about internet security breaches, Locasio asked why the author would spend so much time writing on one.

"Why would a guy put all this stuff on a blog? Does he have nothing better to do?" Locasio asked. "Does he get paid?"

She tried to enlighten him about the goal she shares with thousands of other bloggers on the internet.

"To inform the public so they had one place to go," she replied. "It’s just a passion that many of us have to make the world a better place."

He stopped Hale or the attorneys every time they threw out another cyber term he didn’t understand. Words like cyberflashers, avatars, cams and exploits.

He directed Hale to explain the differences between blogs, message boards and forums. He asked for a quick tutorial on instant messaging.

Source: NJ.com

This would almost be laughable if it wasn’t such a serious matter. Here we have a judge set to retire in the next month or two who acknowledges his ignorance about one of the most integral parts of the case but could end up setting precedent.

Hale would probably have better luck with Judge Judy.

Those poor silly deluded French RIAA wannabes

Steven Hodson — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 04:57:25 +0000

It never ceases to amaze the lengths these pseudo protectors of musician rights will go to in order to push their broken agenda down the throats of everyone. The delusions they suffer under about how they have the rights based on bad copyright laws. Not to mention the backing of entertainment corporations that don’t even realize that they are playing a game of Russian roulette with half the bullets still in the chambers.

This dreamworld that they are living in was made quite apparent today; with the help of an equally screwed up French court decision, as the Société civile des Producteurs de Phonogrammes en France (SPPF) has decided that the time has come to start suing non-French file sharing applications. Now that would be laughable enough but they have also decided to go after the open source source code and file repository Sourceforge. It should be mentioned that this is the premier repository of the vast major of open source software projects around the world.

This apparently doesn’t bother the SPPF or the French courts that both Sourceforge and the developers behind the file sharing software being sued are well beyond the French legal jurisdiction. As Ernesto over at TorrentFreak writes

Interestingly, SPFF is also going after Sourceforge, the open source development website, because it hosts the P2P application Shareaza. Putting aside the discussion on the responsibilities of application developers for their users activities, the decision to go after SourceForge for hosting a application that can potentially infringe, is stretching credibility beyond all bounds”

Michael Masnick also points out another incredibly obvious point

Now that it’s been allowed, SPPF is suing three companies who offer software: Vuze, Limewire and Morpheus. What’s troubling is that even beyond an “inducement” standard, SPPF seems to be basing the lawsuits on the idea that if your software allows any unauthorized copying, then the software itself is illegal. Say goodbye to FTP and, well, the entire internet next.

All I can say is what a bunch of dumb shits the SPPF is for even going down this road and the decision by the French court in this case show exactly how deeply out of touch they are with how the Internet and software works. Not to mention that they aren’t smart enough to see through the total stupidity of the argument in the first place.

Judge: Fake Profile Not Defamation

JR — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:08:33 +0000

A Pennsylvania judge has thrown out a school principal’s lawsuit over a fake MySpace profile. The administrator sued a group of her own students who she says created the profile under her name to make fun of her. She had already disciplined them within the school and turned them over to police but wanted to gain a monetary reward as well.

According to the judge, though, the kids’ creation doesn’t qualify as defamation. The profile, the court said, contained “over-the-top statements” and could not be considered an “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” Basically, the profile was an obvious parody, as opposed to a harmful attack.

The judge did give the students a verbal lashing, saying they “should know that appropriating the identity of a teacher or school administrator to create a fraudulent Internet social profile is unacceptable and that engaging in such conduct will have consequences.” Other than that, though, case closed.

It’s an interesting scenario. Sure, most would say that the kids probably shouldn’t have made the profile. Does it, though, warrant a lawsuit and costly court battle — particularly if, as it sounds, it was quite obvious that the profile didn’t really belong to the principal and was not legit? One might contend that the principal did more damage to her reputation by filing the lawsuit than she would have by disciplining the kids, making sure the page was taken down, and moving on.

I guess it’s the modern-day equivalent of a fake love letter from a teacher or an objectionable scrawling on a bathroom stall wall — with the key difference, of course, being the worldwide accessibility. Seemingly, though, it won’t become a criminal offense in this regard, if the precedent set here is any indication.

Google Sued Over News Content

JR — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:04:36 +0000

What a day for lawsuits. First, Citysearch. Now, Google. A group of Belgian newspapers is suing the search engine for displaying and storing its content.

A copyright organization called Copiepresse says Google is violating Belgian law by keeping archived versions of stories in its search cache program. The group also claims it’s illegal for Google to be displaying headlines and excerpts of articles within the Google News service. It’s calling on Google to pay $77 million in damages.

This isn’t the first time the papers have taken on America’s favorite search site. Google lost a similar case, also originating in Belgium, last year. Google had argued its use of the content fell within “fair use.” A Brussels court did not agree.

Google isn’t commenting on the new case yet. Representatives say they had not received any documents about the suit and cannot respond until they have that information.

I’m sorry, Belgium, but are you kidding me? Believe me, as a writer, I’m all for fair compensation for one’s work. But you don’t want your data shown on Google? You don’t want people to be able to see your content on an immensely popular news and search service? Have you LOOKED at the incoming traffic referrals and seen how many visitors typically click over to a site because of something they saw on Google?

I mean, come on. Seriously.

My suggestion: Once the court nonsense is over, Google removes every mention of the papers from its search and news services with a smile. It goes against the principal a bit, yes. But I think in this case, giving these people what they want will be the most fitting response of all.

Citysearch Accused Of Click Fraud

JR — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:33:42 +0000

InterActiveCorp-owned Citysearch is facing legal action over claims it promotes click fraud on its advertisements.

The suit comes from a man who says he bought an ad with the site, then began to see its clicks suddenly start to climb when he tried to cancel it. He claims Citysearch promotes the fraud by having a click-based commission for its salespeople. He also says the site does not try to stop the practice and does not help users who have been targeted.

“Citysearch.com is defrauding its advertising customers of millions of dollars by not only turning a blind eye to click fraud, but in fact encouraging it as well,” the law firm representing the man, Kabateck Brown Kellner, said in a prepared statement.

That same law firm has won similar cases against Yahoo and Google, gaining multimillion dollar settlements two years ago.